Page 52 of Fighting Gravity
When the whole ship locked down, I felt my muscles go taut with excitement. The chase was on.
My first order of business was heading to the bridge and shutting down the heating systems. There was no need for it now that we were docked at a temperature-regulated port. After some time letting the ship wind down, I lounged in the captain’s chair at the top of a low platform and brought up a map of the ship, waiting for the heat levels to even out all over the interior. Narrowing down my search, I pulled up a schematic of the ventilation. Gradually, I saw the temperature readings even out until finally, I spotted something running hotter than the rest of the vents.
“Got you,” I said to myself.
I watched Quinn’s heat signature for a while, waiting for her to move. She was somewhere near the middle level by the dorms. But as the hunter, I needed to be patient and give her time to think she was alone on the ship so I just watched that little blip of warm flesh on the monitor, waiting. I began to imagine what I was going to do with her when I caught her. Cuffs had crossed my mind. Ropes. Any manner of restraints to keep that body of hers from fighting back.
The idea of her fighting back made my leathers feel tight around my groin, though. My chest swelled with a long breath. I remembered her scent so I might track her through the empty ship. Gods, I was irrational. I ran my tongue over my teeth at the annoyance of my own thoughts running out of control. Quinn was a captive and one that was getting on my last nerve. I should have broken her earlier on to avoid her defiant outbursts. Then she wouldn’t be in the vents working on an escape. It was tiresome.
No.
It was thrilling.
Lying to myself was pointless. My body throbbed for the chase and I kept watching, wishing she’d move already. Was she that cautious? Or was she unconscious? Hurt? My nose wrinkled at the idea but I wasn’t sure what was less appealing. Dragging a body out of the vents or facing the stress of Quinn being hurt again. Her medical patches would have mended her wounds since she had fled into the ventilation. Unless there had been complications…
Those thoughts were unhealthy. I didn’t want to call it concern. I had not concerned myself over anyone in a long time. Not like that. The burden was unwelcome.
Then, she began to move. Slowly at first, she headed through the vents toward one of the dorms. I had expected her to go to her little project in the cargo bay. I knew she’d been working on the shuttle. If not to steal it and get off my ship, then simply to understand how alien shuttles worked. Either plan would have been an ambitious one, but Quinn was smart.
No, not smart. She’s human.
My conflicting thoughts were making my head hurt.
Once Quinn had emerged from the vent, I stood, rolling my shoulders back. My Thel purred, making me eager for the coming pursuit. I could already smell her and cracked my neck from side to side in anticipation. Watching her head to the baths, I realized she was prioritizing hygiene in the absence of my crew. Interesting. But also foolish. She was about to be very vulnerable.
23: Quinn
I waited as long as I could, holding my full bladder for ages before I felt I could move. The ship’s systems were offline and I knew we had docked somewhere. Considering what Norm said about bringing the woman and her child somewhere to be taken care of, I assumed we were in gek-controlled space. And from what I gathered, the crew had left the ship.
Veron had been hunting me for days, but like I’d hoped, she couldn’t fit in my little tunnel system and eventually I started to find a schedule that worked. I evaded her and the others for longer than I thought I could, sneaking out when things were quiet to get supplies from various parts of the ship. I was beginning to know it like the back of my hand. I collected nutrient packs from the mess and stored them in a specific corner of the vents. I discovered various bathrooms to use and never used the same one twice in a row for fear of being discovered. I managed to get my boots from the med bay and that small piece of familiarity calmed me more than they should have. I even found the escape pods and managed to spend some time studying them, but they made so little sense to my human brain.
The real treasure was the transport in the cargo bay. It looked ancient, even by human standards, so I decided to make it my project. No one ever went into the cargo bay. It didn’t have much in it and the lights weren’t automated like they were in other parts of the ship, so I was able to wander undetected. At least, I thought so.
The transport was just a little larger than the escape shuttle Norm had plucked me from, but the thing had no power. The first thing I needed to do was figure out how to restore it, so I made a routine of going back and forth from the cargo bay to the escape pods, dissecting some of them to see what parts were compatible. So far, nothing was really coming together, but I was starting to understand that all of the ships took similar cooling cells for their advanced control panels.
And that was about how far I got…
I still didn’t know much so “Operation: Escape” wasn’t turning out to be very fruitful. The most rewarding part of it was that I wasn’t in a cell being a prisoner and I didn’t have to be around Norm. I hadn’t seen the green giant in a while and even after I knew his sleep cycle had ended, no one came frantically looking for me. Maybe he had no faith I would do anything significant and he was relishing the time he had with me absent. Or maybe he was plotting something awful.
Whatever it was, it gave me some extra time to figure my shit out.
Once I was 90% certain the crew was gone, I escaped my tunnels into the bathing chamber and quickly stripped, eager to wash and get back into my hiding spot before I was caught. While in the shower, I swished some of the cleansing water in my mouth. Spitting the stuff out, my mouth and throat felt instantly refreshed after a long period of time just finger brushing my teeth. It wasn’t the same kind of tingly feeling mint toothpaste gave me, but it felt pretty damn good.
Turning, a particularly glossy metal surface reflected my face back at me in hazy detail.
Jesus, I didn’t even look like myself. I swore I was losing muscle mass. I looked pale and my eyes had the biggest bags under them. I really needed a real meal. Pouches of thick vitamin water shit and chalky protein blocks were not really cutting it. They never quite filled me and the blandness of them was driving me nuts.
After finger-brushing my wet hair off my face, I still didn’t feel remotely like myself. I longed for a gym, joints that weren’t on fire, and a plate of fried chicken. Hell, I even missed my stupid Nexus jumpsuits.
I was nearly done cleaning the grime off my skin when the shower shut off, robbing me of the warm water. I tapped the wall controls thinking maybe I’d hit something wrong, but the thing was completely deactivated. Which might not have been alarming to someone leisurely taking an afternoon bath, but to me, it was a problem.
I quickly slid back into my clothes, not caring that I was still soaking wet, and prepared to slide back into the vents like a snake into its hole. That’s when I heard it. Footsteps. They weren’t coming fast, but they were heavy and deliberate, purposefully letting me know they were there.
Norm.
Of course. I gritted my teeth with anger and ran to the vent. That particular one was about chest level, so hopping up into it was a little bit of a chore, but I managed, leaving the cover off when I realized I didn’t have time to grab it. I heard his steps enter the bathhouse and crawled quickly, getting far enough in so I knew he couldn’t reach my ankle and pull me out.
And then I kept going because fuck that guy. My heart was racing over the idea that he was so close. Knowing he noticed me and had probably just been biding his time to toy with me made my eye twitch.
